Our House: Operation "Open Up The Kitchen"

As I said in my earlier post, we have an 8 month old and a 3 year old.  They are an absolute blast!  They are also very busy and still learning to play together "nicely" :)  Keeping an eye on these two is a bit challenging when you are in the kitchen due to the layout of our main level.  You cannot see them eating at the table and you definitely cannot see them playing in the living room.  We have a galley kitchen and anyone's first thought would be to knock down a wall and open it up, right?  The problem is that we have a staircase right along that wall that would come out. This is what our main level looks like:

So we figured the next best thing to taking out a wall would be to take out part of two walls.
You can see in this first picture James has started taking out the drywall.

And in the next picture James has taken all of the posts and drywall out.  He put a new header in (and don't worry after I took this picture, he also put in the studs above the new header).

Drywall is up!  It looks like it is finally coming together!

In the picture below James is testing out the placement of the new butcher block countertop and cutting it.  After this he used a router on the edges and sanded the entire thing.  P.S. We found this butcher block on craigslist!  It was a round table someone was selling and we already wanted our counter to have a rounded edge (less sharp corners for the kids to run into), so this meant one less cut for James to make.  He took the legs off and cut it to size.  Best part:  rather than spending upwards of $200 on the butcher block, we ended up only spending $40!

I will post a new picture soon!  James has now painted the walls and built a frame with two pillars as the legs for the counter.  I have started to oil the butcher block.  So we are almost to the finish line on this project!  Wohoo!

How We Got Started

Hi!  My husband (James) and I (Ellen) have been married almost 5 years and have two little boys (3yrs old and 8 months old).  My husband has wanted to buy a house to flip ever since we met.  Over the years we have talked about how and when we could make it happen.  Lucky for us James is one of the most talented and handy guys I know!  He spent years volunteering on Habitat for Humanity builds and has done a LOT of work on our house.  When I met him he lived in a 5 bedroom house with 4 other guys…it was essentially an adult fraternity house.
Once the fellas moved out, James has:
- Ripped up the stained/beer spilled on/"once was off white" carpet and sanded and refinished the hardwood floors that were underneath.
-Gutted and renovated all 3 bathrooms our house.
-Moved walls.
-Removed the paneling, re-framed, insulated, and drywalled the basement.
-Gutted and renovated our kitchen.
-Built a deck.
-Put in a new front door and a set of french doors going out to the deck.
The great thing about James is that he has had experience doing many things and if he has not done something before, he is not afraid to try it!  And a big thank you to our friends and family for sharing their time and expertise on some of our projects.
Where do I come in you ask?  I am our design eye!  We both have similar style and taste so I am usually the one to choose the finishes and design aspect, but it is definitely something we both have a say on.  And I help out with projects when I can.
Soooo….finally after saving and dreaming, we were able to take the plunge and purchase our first investment property!  We closed on Wednesday, January 15th, 2014.  I will take you through our first flip adventure here!

Thanks for stopping by!
~Ellen